Hardware headaches? —

Bethesda: Wii U is “not on our radar” for the near term

Elder Scrolls publisher says it's "largely a hardware thing."

With the Wii U generally regarded as more powerful than the current-generation systems that came out six or seven years prior, you'd expect that it wouldn't be too tough to bring current-generation titles to Nintendo's new system. But new statements from Bethesda VP of PR and Marketing Pete Hines suggest that might not be the case.

"None of the games we've announced are being developed for the Wii U, so it's guaranteed that none of those games are coming to Wii U," Hines told Joystiq at QuakeCon recently, meaning games like The Elder Scrolls Online, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and The Evil Within are off the list. "Will any future ones come out? I can't say for sure. In our near-term focus it's not on our radar."

That in and of itself isn't too surprising; plenty of third-party developers seemless-than-eager to bring their big games to the Wii U because of poor hardware sales and low "user engagement" numbers (read: online play stats). But Hines suggested that Bethesda's decision to ignore the Wii U for now may have had more to do with hardware power than market realities.

"It's largely a hardware thing," Hines told Joystiq, adding that Bethesda wants to "make the games that we want to make, on whatever platforms will support them as developed." For example, he said that the PC version of The Elder Scrolls Online "just wasn't possible" on the Xbox 360 due to hardware limitations (the game will be available on the Xbox One and PS4). Based on that example, we can presume that an Xbox 360 and PS3 game like Wolfenstein: The New Order couldn't be "supported as developed" on the Wii U, or "just wasn't possible" on the system.

That's bad news for a console that's soon going to be competing not just with aging console hardware but with brand new, high-powered consoles from both Sony and Microsoft. While Hines admitted that "it remains to be seen what the future holds" regarding the company's Wii U support, his statements right now are far from encouraging for Nintendo.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl